Open More Doors is a section by ArchDaily and the MINI Clubman that takes you behind the scenes of the world’s most innovative offices through exciting video interviews and an exclusive photo gallery featuring each studio’s workspace.

For this episode, we talked with Jo Nagasaka of Schemata Architects about his firm’s history, mission, and office space. Schemata works on a wide range of scales and programs, from furniture to city development, but maintains a commitment to a one-to-one scale of design that focuses on material exploration.

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Last month, The School of Architecture at Taliesin announced the closing of the school after 88 years. The school and the Frank Lloyd Wright foundation issued statements on the closure, as well as the students. Now, a new petition started by Simon DeAguero aims to save the school from closing. The news of closure followed the conclusion of a multi-year struggle back in 2017, when the school was approved to maintain its accreditation as an institute of higher learning.

Videos

Hospitality Design Fair, held at the world-class ICC Sydney on 24-25 September, is the premier trade fair and conference for creative professionals who shape the hospitality interiors marketplace and create amazing spaces. As the only event in Australia focused exclusively on interior design and furniture for hotels, bars, restaurants and clubs, HDF brings together designers, architects, owner/operators, purchasers, brand executives and manufacturers for two days of product discovery, inspiration, education and exceptional networking.

HASTINGS Architecture has completed the redesign of the former Nashville Public Library as the firm's new headquarters. The adaptive reuse of the historic 1965 building re-purposes it as studio space for the firm, as well as a workspaces for other creatives. Drawing its name from its location, the 225 Polk Avenue project gives the city's iconic library a new life.

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Once The Hyatt Foundation has revealed the announcement date of the Pritzker Prize 2020 Winner, the speculation has begun to swirl around which architect will be named next laureate of the trophy. What used to be a somewhat predictable award has become less so in recent years, and if you look at the list of people who have won before, you will realize that anything is possible.

Spring City 66, one of the largest commercial complexes in the city of Kunming in China has just opened. Designed by Kohn Pedersen Fox Associates (KPF), the 430,000 m2 mixed-use development includes a retail podium and office tower, integrated into the unique landscape of the Yunnan Province.

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MVRDV in collaboration with Airbus, Bauhaus Luftfahrt, ETH Zurich, and Systra, is developing a plan for the future of Urban Air Mobility (UAM). The investigation tackles the integration of “flying vehicles” into our urban environments and envisions a comprehensive mobility concept.

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Although we know how important it is to allow children to play in public and outdoor spaces, it is difficult to deny that there are few cities offering adequate prepared environments for children - fun and safe spaces that allow them to experience urbanity and become conscious citizens of community life. For this reason, it is also understandable that families have increasingly instituted leisure spaces in indoor environments, giving their children the freedom and security necessary to learn and grow.

In this article, we have selected 11 incredible examples that demonstrate how interior architecture can help create play spaces for kids of all ages, helping them take their first steps in this world with greater autonomy and confidence.

Is wood the future of construction?

The history etched into Spain's wooden houses has many lessons to teach us about the role of wood in creating everything from light-weight and mobile modular homes to interior and exterior finishes. What's more, these lessons are not limited to new constructions. They apply to everything from furniture to remodels. 

Design and the City is a podcast by reSITE, raising questions and proposing solutions for the city of the future. In the fourth episode entitled Fighting Gentrification, Leona Lynen, a city-maker advocating for the collaboration between civil society and administration, talks about the case of Berlin and her new co-operative project.

Goettsch Partners (GP) has unveiled its design for a mixed-use project in Guangzhou, China. The 300,000-square-meter complex entitled Poly 335 Financial Center, scheduled for completion in 2023, features a landmark 335-meter tall tower.

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Diller Scofidio + Renfro have been selected to renovate Frank Lloyd Wright's Kalita Humphreys Theater in Dallas. Home to the Dallas Theater Center since its opening in 1959, the renovation project will include a master plan for the nine-acre Kalita Humphreys site, which will include new theater spaces and a connection to the Katy Trail.

Hiroshi Toda, Mitsuki Shibairi, Kahara Mori are the three members of team D-D-D rewarded with the 1st Prize and a “Castle Choice” Mention at the COMMON RUINS international competition held by ​YAC - Young Architects Competitions and Mothe Chandeniers​ .

This article was originally published by Project for Public Spaces as "What makes a successful place?", a brief guideline about how to develop great public spaces by following four qualities: Sociability, Uses & Activities, Access & Linkages, and Comfort & Image.

Great public spaces are those places where celebrations are held, social and economic exchanges occur, friends run into each other, and cultures mix. They are the “front porches” of our public institutions – libraries, field houses, schools – where we interact with each other and government. When these spaces work well, they serve as the stage for our public lives, but what makes some places succeed while others fail?

Rotation, displacement, and interleaving of blocks are some of the options that enable the diversity of raw brick patterns in architecture. The shape of these elements, usually used for the construction of walls, has been explored in a creative way to compose facades of residential buildings, representing the formal identity of the building itself and its relationship with its context.

Entitled 2038, the German pavilion looks back from the future to the past, which is, in fact, our modern time. Seeking to provide answers, the pavilion imagines the world in the era of “New Serenity”, and tells the “story of a world in which everything has just about gone well”, an alternative future without war.

The field of architectural visualization has come a long way: It used to be a very time and cost-intensive process that only larger firms could afford and was usually outsourced to specialist companies that let their supercomputers render images for days or even weeks. Whilst this still might sound familiar to some architectural companies, the reality today is that something else is becoming the new standard in visualization: real-time rendering.

The Louis Vuitton Maison Osaka Midosuji is now open to the public. As a result of a close collaboration between architects Jun Aoki and Peter Marino, the four-floor luxury store is a reflection of the city’s international travel hub status. The very first Louis Vuitton café, entitled Le Café V, created in cooperation with Paola Lenti and celebrated chef Yosuke Suga, sits atop Louis Vuitton Maison Osaka Midosuji, as well as Sugalabo V, the chef’s exclusive restaurant.

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OMA and partner Reinier de Graaf, together with Jaspers-Eyers Architects, have won the competition to design the new headquarters of Belgium's National Railway Company in Brussels. The design preserves three monumental buildings in the Brussels-South train station along Fonsny Avenue. At 75,000 square meters, the headquarters project brings all departments under the same roof with work space for 4,000 employees.

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The Hyatt Foundation has revealed the announcement date of the Pritzker Prize 2020 Winner. The most relevant recognition in architecture will be announced on Tuesday, March 3rd, 10 am EST.

Centennial College, Ontario's first public college, has collaborated with DIALOG, Smoke Architecture, and EllisDon to design and build the first zero-carbon, mass timber higher-education building in the country. Scheduled for completion in 2023, the new gateway structure will bring together Indigenous and Western cultures in both form and function.

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